arXiv subjects

Christian Schneider

Publications and source records attributed to Christian Schneider.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Discrete worldline instantons

The semiclassical approximation of the worldline path integral is a powerful tool to study nonperturbative electron-positron pair creation in spacetime-dependent background fields. Finding solutions of the classical equations of motion, i.e. worldline instantons, is possible analytically only in special cases, and a numerical treatment is nontrivial as well. We introduce a completely general numerical approach based on an approximate evaluation of the discretized path integral that easily and robustly gives the full semiclassical pair production rate in nontrivial multi-dimensional fields, and apply it to some example cases.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Resonance fluorescence from an atomic-quantum-memory compatible single photon source based on GaAs droplet quantum dots

Single photon sources, which are compatible with quantum memories are an important component of quantum networks. In this article, we show optical investigations on isolated GaAs/Al$_{0.25}$Ga$_{0.75}$As quantum dots grown via droplet epitaxy, which emit single photons on resonance with the Rb-87-D$_2$ line (780 nm). Under continuous wave resonant excitation conditions, we observe bright, clean and narrowband resonance fluorescence emission from such a droplet quantum dot. Furthermore, the second-order correlation measurement clearly demonstrates the single photon emission from this resonantly driven transition. Spectrally resolved resonance fluorescence of a similar quantum dot yields a linewidth as narrow as 660 MHz ($ 2.7~μeV $), which corresponds to a coherence time of 0.482 ns. The observed linewidth is the smallest reported so far for strain free GaAs quantum dots grown via the droplet method. We believe that this single photon source can be a prime candidate for applications in optical quantum networks.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Deterministic coupling of quantum emitters in WSe$_2$ monolayers to plasmonic nanocavities

We discuss coupling of site-selectively induced quantum emitters in exfoliated monolayers of WSe$_2$ to plasmonic nanostructures. Squared and rectangular gold nanopillars, which are arranged in pitches of \SI{4}{\micro\meter} on the surface, have sizes of tens of nanometers, and act as seeds for the formation of quantum emitters in the atomically thin materials. We observe chraracteristic narrow-band emission signals from the monolayers, which correspond well with the positions of the metallic nanopillars with and without thin dielectric coating. Single photon emission from the emitters is confirmed by autocorrelation measurements, yielding $g^{2}(τ=0)$ values as low as 0.17. Moreover, we observe a strong co-polarization of our single photon emitters with the frequency matched plasmonic resonances, indicating deterministic light-matter coupling. Our work represents a significant step towards the scalable implementation of coupled quantum emitter-resonator systems for highly integrated quantum photonic and plasmonics applications.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Dynamics of liquid crystal on hexagonal lattice

Nematic liquid crystal (LC) molecules adsorbed on two dimensional materials are aligned along the crystal directions of the hexagonal lattice. It was demonstrated that short electric pulses can reorient the aligned LC molecules in the preferred armchair direction of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). Several states with a variety of colors were obtained by changing the direction and strength of the electric pulses. The ab initio calculations based on density functional theory was carried out to determine the favorable adsorption configurations of the LC molecules on the h-BN surface. A non-volatile display, in which pixel resolution can be determined by grains of hexagonal surface, is proposed, which can offer a pathway towards dynamic high-quality pixels with low power consumption, and could define a new paradigm for all non-volatile display applications.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2018

Observation of bosonic condensation in a hybrid monolayer MoSe2-GaAs microcavity

Condensation of bosons into a macroscopic quantum state belongs to the most intriguing phenomena in nature. It was first realized in quantum gases of ultra-cold atoms, but more recently became accessible in open-dissipative, exciton-based solid-state systems at elevated temperatures. Semiconducting monolayer crystals have emerged as a new platform for studies of strongly bound excitons in ultimately thin materials. Here, we demonstrate the formation of a bosonic condensate driven by excitons hosted in an atomically thin layer of MoSe2, strongly coupled to light in a solid-state resonator. The structure is operated in the regime of collective strong coupling, giving rise to hybrid exciton-polariton modes composed of a Tamm-plasmon resonance, GaAs quantum well excitons and two-dimensional excitons confined in a monolayer of MoSe2. Polariton condensation in a monolayer crystal manifests by a superlinear increase of emission intensity from the hybrid polariton mode at injection powers as low as 4.8 pJ/pulse, as well as its density-dependent blueshift and a dramatic collapse of the emission linewidth as a hallmark of temporal coherence. Importantly, we observe a significant spin-polarization in the injected polariton condensate, a fingerprint of the core property of monolayer excitons subject to spin-valley locking. The observed effects clearly underpin the perspective of building novel highly non-linear valleytronic devices based on light-matter fluids, coherent bosonic light sources based on atomically thin materials, and paves the way towards studying materials with unconventional topological properties in the framework of bosonic condensation.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2018

High-concurrence time-bin entangled photon pairs from optimized Bragg-reflection waveguides

Semiconductor Bragg-reflection waveguides are well-established sources of correlated photon pairs as well as promising candidates for building up integrated quantum optics devices. Here, we use such a source with optimized non-linearity for preparing time-bin entangled photons in the telecommunication wavelength range. By taking advantage of pulsed state preparation and efficient free-running single-photon detection, we drive our source at low pump powers, which results in a strong photon-pair correlation. The tomographic reconstruction of the state's density matrix reveals that our source exhibits a high degree of entanglement. We extract a concurrence of $88.9\pm 1.8\%$ and a fidelity of $94.2 \pm 0.9\%$ with respect to a Bell state.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2018

Two-dimensional semiconductors in the regime of strong light-matter coupling

The optical properties of transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers are widely dominated by excitons, Coulomb-bound electron-hole pairs. These quasi-particles exhibit giant oscillator strength and give rise to narrow-band, well-pronounced optical transitions, which can be brought into resonance with electromagnetic fields in microcavities and plasmonic nanostructures. Due to the atomic thinness and robustness of the monolayers, their integration in van der Waals heterostructures provides unique opportunities for engineering strong light-matter coupling. We review first results in this emerging field and outline future opportunities and challenges.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Intrinsic and environmental effects on the interference properties of a high-performance quantum dot single photon source

We report a joint experimental and theoretical study of the interference properties of a single photon source based on a In(Ga)As quantum dot embedded in a quasi-planar GaAs-microcavity. Using resonant laser excitation with a pulse separation of 2 ns, we find near-perfect interference of the emitted photons, and a corresponding indistinguishability of $\mathcal{I} = (99.6\,^{+\,0.4}_{-\,1.4})\%$. For larger pulse separations, quasi-resonant excitation conditions, increasing pump power or with increasing temperature, the interference contrast is progressively and notably reduced. We present a systematic study of the relevant dephasing mechanisms, and explain our results in the framework of a microscopic model of our system. For strictly resonant excitation, we show that photon indistinguishability is independent of pump power, but strongly influenced by virtual phonon assisted processes which are not evident in excitonic Rabi oscillations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2018

Spontaneous emission enhancement in strain-induced WSe2 monolayer based quantum light sources on metallic surfaces

Atomic monolayers of transition metal dichalcogenides represent an emerging material platform for the implementation of ultra compact quantum light emitters via strain engineering. In this framework, we discuss experimental results on creation of strain induced single photon sources using a WSe2 monolayer on a silver substrate, coated with a very thin dielectric layer. We identify quantum emitters which are formed at various locations in the sample. The emission is highly linearly polarized, stable in linewidth and decay times down to 300 ps are observed. We provide numerical calculations of our monolayer-metal device platform to assess the strength of the radiative decay rate enhancement by the presence of the plasmonic structure. We believe, that our results represent a crucial step towards the ultra-compact integration of high performance single photon sources in nanoplasmonic devices and circuits.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Toward Scalable Boson Sampling with Photon Loss

Boson sampling is a well-defined task that is strongly believed to be intractable for classical computers, but can be efficiently solved by a specific quantum simulator. However, an outstanding problem for large-scale experimental boson sampling is the scalability. Here we report an experiment on boson sampling with photon loss, and demonstrate that boson sampling with a few photons lost can increase the sampling rate. Our experiment uses a quantum-dot-micropillar single-photon source demultiplexed into up to seven input ports of a 16*16 mode ultra-low-loss photonic circuit, and we detect three-, four- and five-fold coincidence counts. We implement and validate lossy boson sampling with one and two photons lost, and obtain sampling rates of 187 kHz, 13.6 kHz, and 0.78 kHz for five-, six- and seven-photon boson sampling with two photons lost, which is 9.4, 13.9, and 18.0 times faster than the standard boson sampling, respectively. Our experiment shows an approach to significantly enhance the sampling rate of multiphoton boson sampling.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Sauter-Schwinger pair creation dynamically assisted by a plane wave

We study electron-positron pair creation by a strong and constant electric field superimposed with a weaker transversal plane wave which is incident perpendicularly (or under some angle). Comparing the fully non-perturbative approach based on the world-line instanton method with a perturbative expansion into powers of the strength of the weaker plane wave, we find good agreement - provided that the latter is carried out to sufficiently high orders. As usual for the dynamically assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect, the additional plane wave induces an exponential enhancement of the pair-creation probability if the combined Keldysh parameter exceeds a certain threshold.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Polariton condensation in $S$- and $P$-flatbands in a two-dimensional Lieb lattice

We study the condensation of exciton-polaritons in a two-dimensional Lieb lattice of micropillars. We show selective polariton condensation into the flatbands formed by S and P$_{x;y}$ orbital modes of the micropillars under non-resonant laser excitation. The real space mode patterns of these condensates are accurately reproduced by the calculation of related Bloch modes of S- and P-flatbands. Our work emphasizes the potential of exciton-polariton lattices to emulate Hamiltonians of advanced potential landscapes. Furthermore, the obtained results provide a deeper inside into the physics of flatbands known mostly within the tight-binding limit.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Quantum-optical spectroscopy of a two-level system using an electrically driven micropillar laser as resonant excitation source

Two-level emitters constitute main building blocks of photonic quantum systems and are model systems for the exploration of quantum optics in the solid state. Most interesting is the strict-resonant excitation of such emitters to generate close to ideal quantum light and to control their occupation coherently. Up till now related experiments have been performed exclusively using bulky lasers which hinders the application of resonantly driven two-level emitters in photonic quantum systems. Here we perform quantum-optical spectroscopy of a two-level system using a compact high-$β$ microlaser as excitation source. The two-level system is based on a semiconductor quantum dot (QD), which is excited resonantly by a fiber-coupled electrically driven micropillar laser. In this way we dress the excitonic state of the QD under continuous wave excitation and trigger the emission of single-photons with strong multi-photon suppression ($g^{(2)}(0)=0.02$) and high photon indistinguishably ($V=57\pm9\%$) via pulsed resonant excitation at 156 MHz.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Exploring the Photon-Number Distribution of Bimodal Microlasers

A photon-number resolving transition edge sensor (TES) is used to measure the photon-number distribution of two microcavity lasers. The investigated devices are bimodal microlasers with similar emission intensity and photon statistics with respect to the photon auto-correlation. Both high-$β$ microlasers show partly thermal and partly coherent emission around the lasing threshold. For higher pump powers, the strong mode of microlaser A emits Poissonian distributed photons while the emission of the weak mode is thermal. In contrast, laser B shows a bistability resulting in overlayed thermal and Poissonian distributions. While a standard Hanbury Brown and Twiss experiment cannot distinguish between simple thermal emission of laser A and the mode switching of laser B, a TES allows us to measure the photon-number distribution which provides important insight into the underlying emission processes. Indeed, our experimental data and its theoretical description by a master equation approach show that TESs are capable of revealing subtle effects like temporal mode switching of bimodal microlasers. As such our studies clearly demonstrate the huge benefit and importance of investigating nanophotonic devices via photon-number resolving sensors.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Synthesis of mixed hypermetallic oxide BaOCa$^+$ from laser-cooled reagents in an atom-ion hybrid trap

Hypermetallic alkaline earth (M) oxides of formula MOM have been studied under plasma conditions that preclude insight into their formation mechanism. We present here the application of emerging techniques in ultracold physics to the synthesis of a mixed hypermetallic oxide, BaOCa$^+$. These methods, augmented by high-level electronic structure calculations, permit detailed investigation of the bonding and structure, as well as the mechanism of its formation via the barrierless reaction of Ca $(^3P_J)$ with BaOCH$_{3}^+$. Further investigations of the reaction kinetics as a function of collision energy over the range 0.005 K to 30 K and of individual Ca fine-structure levels compare favorably with calculations based on long-range capture theory.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2017

Dynamics of the Optical Spin Hall Effect

We study the time evolution of the Optical Spin Hall Effect (OSHE), which occurs when exciton-polaritons undergo resonant Rayleigh scattering. The resulting spin pattern in momentum space is quantified by calculating the degree of circular polarization of the momentum space image for each point in time. We find the degree of circular polarization performing oscillations, which can be described within the framework of the pseudospin model by Kavokin et al. (Ref. 1).

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Observation of hybrid Tamm-plasmon exciton-polaritons with GaAs quantum wells and a MoSe2 monolayer

Strong light matter coupling between excitons and microcavity photons, as described in the framework of cavity quantum electrodynamics, leads to the hybridization of light and matter excitations. The regime of collective strong coupling arises, when various excitations from different host media are strongly coupled to the same optical resonance. This leads to a well-controllable admixture of various matter components in three hybrid polariton modes. Here, we study a cavity device with four embedded GaAs quantum wells hosting excitons that are spectrally matched to the A-valley exciton resonance of a MoSe2 monolayer. The formation of hybrid polariton modes is evidenced in momentum resolved photoluminescence and reflectivity studies. We describe the energy and k-vector distribution of exciton-polaritons along the hybrid modes by a thermodynamic model, which yields a very good agreement with the experiment.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2017

Signatures of a dissipative phase transition in photon correlation measurements

Understanding and characterizing phase transitions in driven-dissipative systems constitutes a new frontier for many-body physics. A generic feature of dissipative phase transitions is a vanishing gap in the Liouvillian spectrum, which leads to long-lived deviations from the steady-state as the system is driven towards the transition. Here, we show that photon correlation measurements can be used to characterize the corresponding critical slowing down of nonequilibrium dynamics. We focus on the extensively studied phenomenon of optical bistability in GaAs cavity-polaritons, which can be described as a first-order dissipative phase transition. Increasing the excitation strength towards the bistable range results in an increasing photon-bunching signal along with a decay time that is prolonged by more than nine orders of magnitude as compared to that of low density polaritons. In the limit of strong polariton interactions leading to pronounced quantum fluctuations, the mean-field bistability threshold is washed out. Nevertheless, the scaling of the Liouvillian gap closing as thermodynamic limit is approached provides a signature of the emerging dissipative phase transition. Our results establish photon correlation measurements as an invaluable tool for studying dynamical properties of dissipative phase transitions without requiring phase-sensitive interferometric measurements.

quant-ph↗